The Bonding Chronicles Ch. 15

With a gentle assist from the hand-break, Sara whipped the car around and slammed it into first, before making quick work of the ascending gears, until she was doing what Sara did best, keeping them right at the edge of what local police would allow; which for Sara, seemed to be about fifteen over the speed limit.

Andrew whooped and revelled in the ecstatic joy he could feel from her, the thrill of the road getting under her skin, and infecting Andrew by proxy.

Sara had mentioned her other stop in Oregon, and so while they settled in for a long drive, Andrew kicked his feet up on the dash and opened the flap, sliding the documents out of the clean manila envelop. It was obvious to Andrew what the documents were the moment he saw the first sheet, and his eyes bunched up as he wondered what was so special about them.

"Well?" Sara asked, trying to keep her eyes on the road, her interest in what Andrew was doing repeatedly drawing her attention.

"It's my medical records..."

Andrew's voice showed the same confusion as the wrinkles on his bunched up face. The light above him came on, causing Sara to yelp in surprise before she shook her head and stated, "Show off."

Andrew tore his gaze from the cover sheet and grinned at his beautiful mate, Sara seeming so much more than anything he thought he deserved.

"Less melancholy, more read-y. I want to hear all about baby Andrew, the purple-eyed super-genius."

Andrew caressed Sara's hand on the gear shift, devotion written across his heart at how she had sensed his sudden change of mood.

"Yeah, yeah, we're awesome and all that, get to reading!"

There was excitement in her voice, and as she peeled her gaze from the road to give him a momentary wink, he laughed and began digging into the documents.

Everything was organized extremely well, and as he scanned through the pages, he noticed that different colors of highlighters had been used to draw attention to different types of data. The records were impressive, documenting every detail of Andrew's growth as a baby, and annotating with great joy his mental development as he grew up.

Periodically, he would come across post-it notes, written by a woman's hand, asking pointed questions about certain figures or annotations by doctors.

It took Andrew the better part of an hour to sort through all of the documents, his gift helping him to keep track of everything through spreadsheets and graphs on his phone. In the end he placed the documents back in their sleeve, and leaned back in his seat, eyes closed and head aching as he tried to make sense of everything.

It didn't take long for him to understand why Vivienne had planned to confront him about his past. A lot of it didn't make sense to him at first either, but as he got further into his own history, some of the pieces started to come together.

"So?" Sara asked, her tone ripe with curiosity, like a large fruit, ready to fall from the tree of Andrew's research.

"Well, you're right. I was apparently a healthy and smart baby of average size and length. The doctor where I was born seemed excited to have delivered a purple-eyed baby, and even noted in my chart that they were going to write a paper about it.

"There was mention of follow up exams in that same note, but no records of either the exams or a paper were ever released by that doctor. Your mother went through the trouble of looking them up, and discovered that they are now working for the Pentagon as a 'consultant,' if you can believe that."

Andrew opened his eyes and shook his head, before smiling at Sara and continuing.

"My charts all showed that I was developing perfectly. It was kind of hard to track everything, with how often my parents moved bases. Whoever your mother's P.I. is, he's well-connected, because most of my pediatrician visits were with military doctors, on base. How he managed to get his hands on the files, I have no idea.

"Anyway, there were several early visits by my parents in the records, where they were concerned about how I was behaving. They felt like I was watching them, and would only cry when I knew they were close enough to hear. There were doctors' notes about how foolish that was, and how it must have been a coincidence, but... Well, given what I am, maybe it was more."

Sara chanced a glance at Andrew and beamed, "Of course, you were an acute — and a cute — baby."

"No, Sara, I don't think you understand. I was like two weeks old. I shouldn't have been able to see more than a half-foot, and even that would've be blurry as heck, let alone the fact that neurologically, there is no way I should have been able to know it was them making noise. They mention that the wife of a C.O. had visited them, and that they could have sworn that I pretended to be asleep while she was cooing over me, and that as soon as she left, I looked at them and moved my mouth, burbling as if trying to convey some kind of message.

"It was so strange that the doctor went through the trouble of writing the story into his notes with as much detail as he could remember. That's just plain bonkers, if it's true."

"Alright, that's starting to sound a bit more like the stuff I was hoping for."

Andrew bristled at the excited tone of Sara's statement, the joy she was taking from the troubling events of Andrew's past rubbed him the wrong way, and as his frustration grew, Sara laughed and said, "There's nothing wrong with being different, Andrew. The fact is, you're amazing, and all of this just puts that even more into context."

He took a breath and realized that a part of himself was still fighting against the idea that he was different from anyone else. So much of his existence had been shaped around the process of proving himself to those around him that he was still having a hard time breaking himself from the notion that he was — in a very profound way — different.

"Yeah, you're totally right. Sorry."

Sara rolled her eyes, recognizing how quickly her lover had seen what she was trying to say, realized what he was doing, and admitted to it, resolving himself to try and be better in the future — something they had spent the majority of the night trying to help her do.

"Show off," was all that Sara could say as she returned her eyes to the road, the miles ticking by as they talked.

"What?" Andrew responded with an ironic grin, before looking back at the envelop and resuming his recap.

"At first glance, everything looks pretty standard from there. I was estimated to grow to around six feet in height, and up until I was eleven I was headed in that direction. My school records looked great, grades and testing were off the chart. After eleven, while my academic grades continued to do well, my body stopped growing, until I got to the point where we met.

"There were records of metabolic studies that my parents had enrolled me in, trying to understand why my growth just stopped, but the best the doctors came up with was that I had a glandular problem, and that perhaps I was not destined to follow the standard developmental pattern."

Andrew grew quiet, memories of those studies coming fresh to his mind, though he had never heard what they were for, or what the doctors had told his parents. He knew, but chose to accept that his stunted height was just a part of who he was. He shook his head, remembering how much more difficult that had ended up being than he had thought as a child.

He looked up and smiled, the pain of his previous experiences washing away the moment he saw Sara balancing looking at him and keeping her eye on the road.

"To be honest, if not for your mother's notes, I might not have thought much of the documents when I first went through them. The one thing your mother noticed was comments from some of my better teachers that seemed out of place. Things like: 'I am sure you are tired of reading this, but I cannot seem to say enough about how wonderful Andrew is as a student', even though there were no other notes to that effect in my records.

"By the time I finished the documents, a clear pattern had emerged. Those teachers and doctors, the ones most interested in what was going on with me, were the ones with the least notes, and many times had incomplete records, either in grades or medical history. It was odd, and I can understand why it stood out to your mother.

"Their notes read like a broken story, pieces that don't seem to fit together. Your mother had several post-its that pointed to the idea that these records had been faked, that the gaps were a clear sign of inconsistencies in narrative, and by the end your mother thought that much of my past had been fabricated. The thing is, I remember all of these people, my photographic memory makes it impossible for me to forget.

"What I found, and think is more likely, is that someone has modified these records, and that pieces have either been changed, or removed in whole."

Andrew thought back on one of the best teachers he had ever had, before Karen, who had challenged Andrew like no other. The teacher had developed a curriculum just for him, and seemed to love working with Andrew. Everything had been going great, until the teacher got a job teaching at a nearby college.

Sara followed the white lines of the road as they sped down US 101, and could feel Andrew's shifting mood as he followed his latest train of thought. Whatever he had just thought of seemed to have bothered him, and so she stole a glance, seeing his eyes whipping from side to side as he scanned through several documents in his mind.

"What the hell?" Andrew blurt out. "That's... No, that's just too crazy."

He shook his head and clenched the documents, threatening to damage the pages with the force of his grip.

"What's going on?" Sara asked, knowing that Andrew was growing angry, and she had never known him to be angry.

"Those fuckers moved us, because of me."

Sara was still confused, and Andrew was too upset to notice. He grimaced at the documents in his hands, the manila envelope containing no proof to what he now knew, but somehow providing him with everything he needed to know.

"Who, Andrew?"

His lavender eyes narrowed as he reconsidered everything he had figured out. It took him only a couple of seconds to rematch the dates, and confirm that everything he had been through — the constant changing of schools, the relocation of doctors and teachers — had been because of what he was.

"The military, hell, the government! They changed my parents' assignments because of me."

Sara allowed the car to slow as she turned her gaze on Andrew, her expression making her suspicion of his statement clear. She loved Andrew, and trusted him in every way, but even she had a hard time believing that claim.

"Baby, I love you, and you're amazing, but don't you think you might be taking yourself a bit too seriously now? I mean, the government relocated military funding to try and... What, keep you from fitting in?"

Andrew could understand what Sara was saying, and did not need the Bond to tell him that her playful tone was hiding genuine curiosity. She found the notion of what he had said funny, but wanted to be convinced.

"Every time someone took an interest in me, either my family moved, or that person got a new and better job. A couple of times I could have bought, but that same pattern happened throughout my entire life. The most frustrating part is that these stupid fucking documents don't even include the details about what had caused my family to be moved. Those details are missing, cleverly omitted."

Andrew's speech had grown fast, his words almost melding together by the end, and he was breathing hard while staring at the beige sleeve that Sara's mother had given them. Whatever Vivienne had hoped to accomplish earlier that night was insignificant against the weight of what Andrew had discovered on his own.

Sara was relieved to feel Andrew settle as she placed her hand on his leg, her warmth giving him comfort and assurance. In that moment of clarity, Andrew realized that they had missed their turn-off some time ago, The Clowder resting at least fifty miles behind him.

Andrew's voice held none of his previous anger when he asked, "I thought we were going to talk with your dad?"

The sky was just starting to lighten out over the ocean, and its rays made Sara's amber eyes shine like beautiful stars.

"Nope... We're heading to 'Bandon by the sea'."

With a laugh, Andrew asked, "Okay, now I gotta know: What's in Bandon?"

Sara smiled, loving how Andrew's previous mood had been so easily forgotten at the sight of the new mystery she had presented.

"The best fish-and-chips you'll ever eat."

The car was silent, and Sara was forced to look to the side where she saw Andrew watching the horizon with interest.

"I could murder some fish-and-chips."

So many questions had been exposed by what Andrew had just discovered in those documents, and Sara wanted to ask them all, but behind the joy of Andrew's declaration, she could tell he was still sorting through the information, hoping to glean any other details that may be hiding within the pages.

His previous anger was missing, much to Sara's pleasure, and she decided to let it go for now, giving Andrew time to figure out what he wanted to do. As they sped towards their fried feast, their conversation returned to lighter topics, like what they were going to do with the Direwolf that was hunting in Sara's forest.

***** Breakfast Between Friends *****

Karen's hands instinctively stroked her belly the moment the fog of her slumber lifted from her eyes, and as she cooed to herself at the tingling pleasure that the contact gave her, she smiled and luxuriated in the sensation. Her body was already different, though not in the substantial way she had expected.

The elasticity of her skin had grown by leaps and bounds, explaining how her midsection had stopped from being split open by the events of the previous night. She flexed her limbs beneath the warm blanket, finding that everything felt just as it had, strong and athletic, but well within the bounds of what a woman in her late twenties would be capable of.

Her stomach growled, causing her to laugh in the face of the most noticeable change — her metabolism was that of a small child, craving anything and everything she could find to eat.

She had remembered falling asleep on the bed, the sight of her lovers putting her to rest still lingering in her thoughts as she scanned the living room from where she woke. Karen had sensed the slumbering forms of Tani'm and Thunderfoot, who had curled up together and fallen asleep before the fire, its embers still smoldering as it fought the unwinnable fight.

Karen slunk from the blanket, and moved towards the bedroom, her careful steps causing far more noise than she ever thought possible, until the small Native American woman and jackalope lifted their heads and settled her within their sleepy gaze. With the failure of her attempted consideration behind her, she took off at a sprint until she vanished into the master bedroom, the sound of the slamming door announcing her departure.

It was not shyness that made her take flight, but something more... She struggled to put to words the emotion that caused her to run, and as she giggled and took sharp breaths against the exhilaration that coursed through her veins, it came to her in a flash. In her mind it had been a game, and running was just the natural response to being discovered.

"Well, I guess there are more changes," she was forced to admit to herself as she pulled on her thin and lacy panties, the garment feeling delightful against her sensitive flesh.

Almost a minute later, Karen exited the bedroom, her loose-fitting blouse and jeans failing to hide the woman's allure as her hips shimmied with every step.

Tani'm had taken a seat at the table, and watched the playful way that Karen reentered the living room. Her hand rested on the note that Andrew and Sara had left for Karen, her fingers tracing the edges of the pewter figurine that had been placed atop the piece of paper.

"Would you like some coffee?" Karen asked as she opened up the stove and placed some wood near the entrance.

After a few moments with no response, Karen stopped her preparations, and looked over at her demure friend, surprised to see the uncertainty in the woman's gaze.

Karen stood and shook her head, laughing as she asked, "Alright, out with it."

Tani'm hated the way that Karen seemed to always make her feel better, and despite her efforts she smiled as she began. "What the fuck is Sara?"

Karen turned her head to the side as she tried to understand just what Tani'm had learned. She trusted the young druid, but her friend's frustration made her cautious about divulging too much information.

"What do you mean?"

The words were barely out of her mouth when Tani'm yelled, "What do I mean?! A giant fucking cat stalked us in the forest last night, and stole that elk meat in the fridge. Then a couple of hours later, I get attacked at my house by the fucking wolf — you know, the one that almost killed me."

Her breathing was short and her chest was rising and falling with the intensity of her emotions, a panic attack being held back by the force of Karen's will.

For a moment, Tani'm almost exploded in expletives as a smile spread across Karen's face, and the older woman's hand came up just as a laugh escaped her lips.

"I'm sorry, Tani'm. That must've been difficult, and I can't express how happy I am that you escaped the wolf and found your way here."

Thunderfoot watched the exchange from where he sat by the sofa, his antlers swaying back and forth as his eyes shifted between the two woman. He was curious what was happening, understanding that there was meaning behind their noises, and he began to understand the emotions he could see on display.

There was something in Karen's tone that soothed the ache in Tani'm's heart. As her pulse settled, and clarity again returned to Tani'm's thoughts, Karen asked, "But what does that have to do with Sara?"

It was difficult for Karen to lie to someone she liked and wanted to trust, and that struggle showed in the tone of her question. Tani'm saw the subterfuge in Karen's question, and instead of answering, she tilted her head to the side and held out the note.

Karen finished lighting the wood in the stove, keeping the side open long enough for the flames to take hold, and while the heart of the house came alive, she reached out and took the piece of parchment from Tani'm's outstretched hand. It took her almost no time to read the note, her face showing the love and joy she took from her mates' words.

It was Sara's signature that she suspected gave her young lover away, and as she looked at Tani'm she could see the challenge in the small woman's eyes, her gaze saying, "Well, do you still want to continue with this farce?"

The fact was, Andrew and Sara were determined to rid the forest of the wolf, and Karen knew that meant that Sara would be joining in the hunt. She wished it was otherwise, but there was no convincing Sara not to pursue the dangerous creature. So, as Karen considered the weight of what they were facing, and the brazenness of the wolf's most recent attack, she decided to stop playing games with the small woman.

She moved further into the kitchen, placing the note on the counter before filling a pot with water. While the cool liquid splashed into the metal vessel, Karen responded, "She does love her games, I've got to give her that."

There was silence between the two woman, and as Karen set the pot atop the stove, before moving the burning wood to the corner where the heat was most needed, she could tell that Tani'm wanted a more concrete answer.

"Sara's an Ailuranthrope."